Ben & Jerry’s Black Lives Matter

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Although many corporations and businesses choose to remain neutral in political and social issues, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, company founders of a Vermont-based ice cream parlor chain, Ben & Jerry’s, have history with different political affairs and movements. Ben & Jerry’s has released different ice cream flavors that support marriage equality, raise awareness of climate change, and support Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders with a limited-edition flavor named Bernie’s Yearning.
Ben & Jerry’s made a public announcements supporting the Black Lives Matter movement because “Black lives matter. They matter because they are children, brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers. They matter because the injustices they face steal from all of us — white people and people of color alike. They steal our very humanity.”
“Systemic and institutionalized racism are the defining civil rights and social justice issues of our time. We’ve come to understand that to be silent about the violence and threats to the lives and well-being of black people is to be complicit in that violence and those threats,” stated Cohen and Greenfield.
The public had various reactions to the public statement made by the company. Some supported the company and some individuals did not. In response to the statement, the police organization Blue Lives Matter called a “boycott on Ben & Jerry’s”.
Despite the variety of responses, Ben & Jerry’s continues to support BLM but will not be accompanied by an ice cream flavor like previous activist moves.